


De Profundis

by It-is-the-Hannah (carry_on_my_wayward_outcasts)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Also others - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Multi, The Author Regrets Nothing, The little mermaid - Freeform, but not until later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 11:44:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12320439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carry_on_my_wayward_outcasts/pseuds/It-is-the-Hannah
Summary: “Na-ta-sha.” He turns that thousand-watt smile on again, and somehow it’s even better now that he’s falling asleep again, exhausted from his near-death experience. “Beautiful.” He slips unconscious, leaving Natasha to stare at him. She’s not sure if he was calling the name beautiful or her, but either way, there’s a fluttering in her stomach.She knew this was a bad idea.





	De Profundis

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a weird AU based off of 1, a tumblr post about a little girl thinking Natasha and Ariel are the same person, and 2, a series of late-night conversations with my friend.   
> There's going to be a couple more fairy tales woven in, and a lot more characters making appearances, but I don't want to tag for those until they actually show up.  
> Hope you enjoy!

It was a dark and stormy night. 

As Natasha sped through the water, away from the palace, away from her father, away from the boring safety she had grown to despise, she couldn’t help but laugh at how cliche the weather was being. A relentless sea and tempestuous sky to match her swirling emotions after her latest argument with her father seemed like something out of a fairytale. All it needed to complete the picture was a damsel in distress for her to save and-

A scream pierced the blackness. 

Of course it did. 

Natasha shot to the surface, searching for the source of the noise. She located it after a moment- a young man, blond hair easily spotted even in the dark, struggling to stay afloat and to keep himself from being dashed against the rocks at the base of the nearby cliffs. 

He probably fell off of them, the idiot. 

Natasha knows that she isn’t supposed to be interacting with humans. She knows she really ought to leave this man to fend for himself if he was stupid enough to go out on a cliff in the middle of a storm this bad. She knows that this is probably going to come back to bite her in the ass later, but she’s feeling just pissed and rebellious and reckless enough that she doesn’t care. Especially not when she can tell how scared this guy is from a couple hundred yards away.

She ducks under again, and, against her better judgement, races towards the cliffs. She barely makes it, even swimming at full speed. When she gets to the man, he’s started going down, and is all but dead weight, having swallowed far too much water and expended most of his energy desperately fighting against the waves. He’s still aware enough to fight weakly against her as she puts her arms around him, no doubt thinking she’s some sort of animal comes to drag him further into the depths. 

“Stop fighting me you idiot, I’m trying to save your life.” She’s not sure if he actually hears her over the roar of the wind or if he’s just finally passed out, but he stops resisting her, and she drags him around to the relative safety of the beach.

Once she’s gotten him up on the sand, she suddenly realizes that her original plan of just leaving him to be found by his own kind isn’t going to work. Even if people realize he’s missing already, they probably won’t risk coming down to the beach until the storm lets up, which won’t be until dawn at least. She can’t just leave him here in the rain by himself, not with the unpredictable tide and his apparent accident-prone nature. 

There are worse ways, she thinks, of spending a night. Her fight with her father earlier that evening had been about her wanting to interact with humans, after all, and this one was at least fairly attractive. Hanging out in a cove and watching his face to make sure he doesn’t stop breathing until his people find him doesn’t seem like a terrible-

Wait a second. Is he breathing  _ now?  _ Shit. His lips aren’t blue or anything, but it doesn’t look like his chest is rising and falling like it’s supposed to, and goddamnit, if he dies on land after she went to the effort of pulling him out of the water, she is going to be so mad. She puts her head against his chest to see if she can at least hear his heart beating, and at least that’s still working. His lips are starting to turn a little blue now, so she knows she’s going to have to try and get him breathing fast.

Thank god she never listened to her father about staying far away from the beaches when there’s humans around. She’s seen people brought back from drowning before, and once she heard the process explained. She wasn’t paying very close attention any of those times, but it’s all she’s got to go on. It’s better than nothing. 

She folds her hands like she’s pretty sure she’s supposed to, and presses vigorously on his chest to the rhythm of her own breathing. It doesn’t seem like it’s working. Wasn’t there a second part? It always looked like kissing- no, she remembers now, she has to blow into his mouth. Great. 

She pauses the compressions, pinches his nose, seals her mouth over his, and blows hard. She’s about to go back to pressing his chest when he bucks under her hands, coughing violently. She quickly turns him on his side so he can vomit up the water he swallowed. When he’s finally finished, he flops down on his back, staring up at her. 

“You saved my life.” His voice is raspy, weak, but something about it- something about it kind of makes her wish the second part had been actual kissing. She doesn’t say that, obviously. Instead, she just gives him a little half smile, and waves her hand in a little, ‘it wasn’t a big deal’ gesture. He grins up at her, and fuck, the sun isn’t supposed to come up for hours, but his smile is so bright she could swear it’s noon. “I’m Clint, by the way. Clint Barton.”

“Natasha.” He watches her lips when she speaks, which somehow isn’t as annoying as it usually would be. He repeats her name softly, feeling out the syllables, cradling them in his mouth like something precious.

“Na-ta-sha.” He turns that thousand-watt smile on again, and somehow it’s even better now that he’s falling asleep again, exhausted from his near-death experience. “Beautiful.” He slips unconscious, leaving Natasha to stare at him. She’s not sure if he was calling the name beautiful or her, but either way, there’s a fluttering in her stomach. 

She  _ knew  _ this was a bad idea. 

Hours later, once the storm has passed and the sun has started coming up over the distant horizon, she starts to hear voices calling for Clint. Still, she can’t help but linger until a dog comes bounding up to them and starts barking. She steals one last look at Clint’s face, then, memorizing the line of his jaw, the softness of his hair, the curve of his mouth, his eyes, just beginning to flutter open- and then she dives into the waves, disappearing back under the sea. 


End file.
